The Spectrum of Grey
by No.Seven III
Summary: "It is one of those moments where the earth is still and silent and Time turns away its weary eyes to give reprieve to the two entwined souls.." O/S AH/AU. Musings of love, loss, reunion and silent promises of forever. Rated M for abstract lemons...


**A/N**: So this is a one shot I've been working on for a few days, it's pretty close to my heart so be gentle with it. I have to say thank you to **Stella Luna Sky** - her story Bare is what inspired me to start writing again and this here is the result of my first finished story in about two years.

I just need to say about the way I wrote this; it is purposefully done that I have not mentioned names, it's all he and her because I wanted to keep it open, you can apply it to anything you like, you know who it is in this context, but I'm not limiting it to these characters. And I wrote most of it in present tense so it feels more like you're there with them.

While reading this I suggest you got to Youtube and simultaneously listen to Sia's amazing song 'Moon' and the 'Sound of thunder and rain' - It puts you in the right mind frame, at least it does with me.

That's all for now. Hope you enjoy and if you do drop me a line, I'd really appreciate any feedback.

P.s This is unbeta'd, I've tried really hard to find and destroy all mistakes but if you find any I'm so sorry.

Disclaimer: I own this story - SM owns the characters that might or might not be featuring in this story...

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><p><strong>The Spectrum of Grey<strong>

'_Moon'_ by Sia

Soft early morning light filters through the sheer curtains.

The clean, pure light of a bright sun diluted into ethereal grey by the softly overcast sky; illuminating and muting the room, the light painted walls, the downy white sheets, the pale creamy skin of chests gently rising and falling, the tiny particles of dust swirling and eddying in the light breeze swaying through the open window.

All is quiet.

It is one of those moments where the earth is still and silent and Time turns away its weary eyes to give reprieve to the two entwined souls lying in the soft bed exchanging nothing but gentle feathery touches and endless stares; one of those rare moments where nothing in the world can reach you through your hazy clarity of the present and the person lying next to you piercing you and soothing you with their unwavering and undeniable gaze. Passing between you the atoms that not only free you to the truest and most honest part of yourself but also chain you into the sweetest sense of submission that there ever was.

It's like looking through a frosted window, surreal and yet so… unbearably _real_.

Her hair falls in gentle tendrils over the pillow, like the roots of a dark knotted tree on an undisturbed field of freshly fallen snow, a halo around her soft face. Her fingers tracing the contours of his profile, his expressions and lines telling her the story of his life and experiences, barely touching his warm skin for fear of shattering what would surely have been an illusion could she not feel his own strong hands mirroring her actions.

He lays beside her, gently raking his fingers through her long mahogany hair, occasionally unable to supress the urge of fisting it in his palm, a reaction not doubt to the quiet desperation raging a storm inside him to never be separated from this remarkable creature again. Her snow-flake touches leaving scorching trails forever branded into his skin as she continued her explorations, discovering meanings and reasons to inches of skin never before appreciated or loved enough for what they were – pieces of one so dearly cherished making up the whole of the man who may as well have been the universal definition of someone who is immutably _loved_.

Bare thighs shift and caress, knees bend and touch, legs entwined with legs, skin against smooth warm skin against rough sheets.

A light patter of rain smatters against the window bringing with it a gust of air that holds the promise of water, of thunder, of hope.

He watches with magnified clarity as the cool air swishes lazily up her spine and over her shoulder causing skin to pucker and the finest hairs to rise.

She inhales deeply and shivers, whether from the sensation of the cool breeze on sensitive skin or from the intensity of the electrical current sparking between eyes of green like spring's first leaf and brown of the tree bearing it, no one will ever know. He pulls her closer to him, their bare chests melding together, the heat from his body warming her instantaneously, and their hearts collaborating in the percussion of their joined orchestra, thumping their beats to the farthest universes daring anyone to listen.

The silence stretched comfortably between them, like the first stretch of the morning eliciting only satisfaction and smiles.

He strokes her face with a tenderness and reverence only a lover would recognise.

"You're so beautiful…" he murmurs, speaking for the first time in hours.

"So are you," she says simply, tracing his straight brow with her finger.

They fall back into silence and stares and senses and sighs.

And this is how the night had passed, seldom exchanges of sweet words of love and longing and devotion and veneration, touches fuelled with heat and desire, lips seeking eager lips, bodies connecting, moving, thrusting…

And as the light sprinkling of rain intensifies into heavy loud smacks against the cool glass the cycle endures.

His hands move down her body with more determination, lust adding urgency to every movement, reaching agonizingly slowly for her throbbing core, moans of relief and anticipation escaping both mouths as his fingers slip through and over wet folds. Gasping, she clutches his copper hair with painful force as he coaxes deliciously intense sensations out of her body with his dexterous fingers, her moans virtually feral as he fills all her senses.

She crushes her lips to his, needing to taste him and he pushes back with equal vigour. One of her hands releases its grip on his soft locks and travels over the lean muscles of his abdomen, gently scraping her nails on the sensitive skin over his ribs causing a shudder of pleasure to run through him, he bites her lip gently as he rides through the sensation. Once her hand had moved down and wrapped around his arousal he could no longer delay his need of feeling her soft wet flesh wrapped around him.

"Please…" he panted into her ear, his desperation evident in his voice.

Her passionate kiss is her only response as she spreads herself open for him and he pushes himself into her wet warmth with one determined thrust.

They had had their time for gentle rediscovery and tentative reunification earlier. Now was the time for passionate dark fucking, hard thrusts and new angles, fingers sinking into flesh, scraping nails down backs, sounds of damp skin slapping as pace increases and moans and yells intensify, hair dampening with sweat and wet open mouthed kisses. Faces scrunch in ecstasy, hair tugged and pulled causing even louder grunts and groans, a sweet, taut nipple enveloped in his mouth, rough pad of his thumb rubbing at her central bundle of nerves causing endless seconds of sensory overload, the pressure increases tenfold, the urgency and desperation for the sanctuary of that overflow of stimulation that leads you directly to the paradise garden nearly excruciating… and then…

with-last-hard-_thrust_… simultaneous twitching and contracting and thick ejaculate and warm secretion and painful noises and then pure and undiluted harmony.

The sensation which courses through their bodies is like that of a million thunder clouds brewing together before Zeus, humming and vibrating with their voltage.

He leans down to kiss her sweetly and delicately on her cheeks and softly pecking all over her face as if she were a fragile glass doll that must be handled with the greatest care, she giggles breathlessly at his antics, having so desperately missed the way he could make her feel as if she were the only one he could see.

He collapses next to her with a sigh sending small particles of dust and a few feathers flying in the wake of his exhaustion. He shifts onto his side, pulling her with him and cradling her in his arms, the combination of their laboured breaths and pounding hearts along with heavy rain still raging outside creating the most peaceful lullaby ever heard by either of them.

Sleep creeps easily into their worn bodies and minds, after a night of such emotional catharsis of years' worth of built up doubt and pain and uncertainties… Darkness descends on their minds and not a flicker of a dream disturbs them.

* * *

><p>"<em>She's going to stay with her mother until she finishes her schooling." <em>

_The poor boy couldn't comprehend what his father was telling him. What was happening? This wasn't something that was supposed to happen. This wasn't something that was ever supposed to be a possibility or even a concept… _

_No, she was coming back, she always came back. Why wasn't she back yet? She was supposed to have been back days ago._

_This couldn't have been true. _

_No. _

_It was one of those strange things parents do to make their children listen to them and obey them through fear and threats. This was a trick, he knew it. When had his parents decided that he needed to be scared into obedience? _

_He was a relatively good kid, made good grades, hardly got into trouble, hardly ever gave anyone any grief – there was no need to when he had her as his friend. _

_She was anything and everything he could need. Anything that normal children or teenagers usually found lacking in their parents or anyone they looked up to, they found in each other. They were each other's affirmation and rock. She knew him and he knew her in the simple, endless and unassuming, non-judgemental way that only two people who had old souls and years of experience with each other could. _

_She was his best friend; it was a poor unworthy term, but there wasn't any other way to say it. _

_They weren't the opposites that balanced each other out; she wasn't the good to his bad or white to his black; they were the grey of a mirror that reflected everything down to your soul, they were everything the other was, the same, the perfect mixture. _

_She was calm, empathic, witty, and she had that rare quality of something that could only be described as a graceful soul. She was good, moral, yet had a faint streak of mischief in her which made her all the more perfect. She kept him out of any bad trouble, and any trouble they did get into was stupid insignificant things expected of two fifteen year olds._

_They had been one of those lucky pairs who seemed to slip through all the stages of life so far without changing the foundation of their friendship. They changed, of course, but they managed to elude the wedge of separation in any form that often occurs when developing personalities begin to take definition. They, as one, grew from the changes of life, making their bond stronger, being able to become individuals separately and together and finding, without much surprise, that they always continued to be completely compatible, an aspect of themselves saved only for the other never touched by change. _

_There was a soul that lived between them that was an accumulation of years of their own souls little by little moving out of their bodies and supplementing this creation that was them as one, an ethereal being that existed as an individual from the two, always floating just in the peripheral, that was a pure merger of their souls. They were able to exist as individuals, but they always had their Soul between them, it was always there. _

_So her being gone was not true. He couldn't – wouldn't – believe it. It must have been a trick. _

_But if it was a trick, the thought unwillingly creeping into his heart and settling in his stomach like an iceberg freezing him from the inside out, then why wasn't she here proving them wrong? _

_Why hadn't she gotten on the plane scheduled to bring her back two days ago? She had been visiting her mother for three weeks as it had been every single year since she had turned six, her mother would take her to somewhere different every year, sometimes overseas, sometimes not. And every year she came back a few days before school started again, always bringing him a small present from her time away. He had a whole collection of little trinkets and toys from around the world on his shelf from her annual holidays, she always gave him something she said made her think of him – and she always had a dilemma of what to get because almost everything made her think of him. And he always had a small gift waiting for her on her return so they would be even. _

_This year however, she hadn't turned up when she was supposed to. He'd been highly confused when he'd phoned her house the night of her supposed return and had no answer. He's pinned it down to it being really late and her being tired, but somewhere he knew it wasn't right, she had never not called or came over to recite her tales of her exciting adventures no matter what time it was. _

_The next day when there was still no word he went over to her house to investigate for himself. School was starting the next day, and he wanted to have at least a day with her before the new term. He couldn't for the life of him understand what was going on. _

_When he came up to an empty house, small waves of panic started lapping in his stomach. _

_He had for years known the location of the spare key, and seeing as he was practically the only one who used it it was jokingly referred to as his key by her and her father. He extracted it from the fake hollow stone that was in a pot plant on the porch and let himself into the house when there had been no answer to his knock. He went straight upstairs to her room and opening the door he could tell that no one had been there in a good while. _

_So now here he was, sitting in front of his parents - his father had phoned her father earlier to find out what was going on – and being told the worst and most confounding news he had ever heard. A dark fog of incomprehension was creeping over his mind. He couldn't think and fully understand what this meant._

_She wasn't coming back. _

_She was staying with her mother in some far away country and not coming back to him. His whole system was in shock, his lungs stopped breathing, his blood stopped flowing, his receptors stopped sending signals to his brain, his heart stopped beating._

_She'd left without warning or reason, and without saying goodbye?_

_Without one last look and smile and hug and word of love and comfort?_

_Their Soul that was floating beside him bent over and wept such a pitiful moan of all the lost beings and tragedies embodied in one, crying a wretched, sorrowed, hollow sound like a man who had lost his God. _

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><p>Hours later they stir…<p>

An unusual sense of rightness accompanies their ascent back to consciousness and it takes them both a moment to realise that they are indeed in each other's arms and it is not a repeat of their recurring dream so often had in the last five years of separation.

She keeps her eyes closed and lets her body tell her what is real, as she has realised over the years that she cannot always trust her eyes to tell her what is truth. She inhales the scent of his warm, soft skin, she feels his strong body wrapped around her, his soft breathing, his vibrant heartbeat. Her face is buried in the crook of his neck and all of a sudden, as if they'd needed to step out of the realm of consciousness to realise what was real, the reality that he is really here holding her in the way she had been yearning for all these years overwhelms her. It's like the eternities of longing and hurt and searing pain she's felt since being away from him is accumulating into a tumour of loss in her throat and the tears that seem to be being pulled out of her eyes by gravity so often since the night before come to storm her face again. A sob that is strangled by her determination not to make him worry about her escapes the clutches of her lips and she wraps her body impossibly tighter around his, gripping at his hair and skin.

She cries for the times and experiences they've missed with each other, she cries for the years of having so unnaturally lived away from this beautiful person who had always been hers and whom she has always belonged to, she cries for the lost lonely boy who had sat in his room and cried over her, thinking that she no longer loved him because of something she had no control over, she cries for the equally lost and lonely girl who had been ambushed by her parents into not returning to everything she knew and loved in life who needed her best friend to hold her and tell her without an uttered sound that she would be alright, she cries for the two people they have become, not having had each other to grow with and feeling lesser because of it, and she cries for the pain suffered by their torn Soul who hovers above them stitching itself slowly, painfully, lovingly back together.

He holds her gently and wordlessly, a few silent tears of his own leaking out to join hers as if his body can't stand to not have every part of it joined with hers.

"I'm sorry," she chants brokenly over and again, apologising for every tear and every stab of pain and every sleepless night he suffered because of her.

"I love you," he murmurs back, countering her every painful thought with it.

After a few moments their eyes lock in that meaningful way when you know more than eye contact is passing between two people. It is soft and intense; it is every declaration of love they can master.

He strokes a lock of hair away from her face.

"And I'll always love you," she says in the most quiet and reverent voice.

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><p>She has told him how she cut ties with her mother after she left school and had to work for a year to make enough money to move back home to start a life for herself and study further here. She hadn't been back to visit her father yet as he had also been a willing participant in her ambushed relocation and she hadn't been able to forgive him yet, but she said she was working up to it. She said that their reasoning behind it was that they felt she was becoming distracted and restless in her small town and that she was destined for so much more, which is why they moved her in with her mother to a far-away country, and that they had decided a clean break would be best for her. Her father had met them there so he could bring all her personal belongings from home and so they could explain to her as that unyielding wall that two united parents seem to create what her new situation would be. She realised then that her parents didn't know her, and although they were doing what they thought was best for a young girl with a lot of potential – it wasn't what was best for her. Even five years down the line she knew it, and in twenty years she would still know it.<p>

She hadn't uttered a single word for two months after that meeting.

When she came back she had moved to the city she knew he would be because it was the place they had both been planning on heading towards after leaving high school had their lives continued on without the interruption and as soon as she had settled she had set out tracking him down. It hadn't taken long, and at the same time felt like it had taken perpetuity. Every time she had gone anywhere in the city she had been like a constant search light, wide eyes scanning every crowded room or populated street in case by chance they would be in the same place.

When she had finally tracked him down and saw him across the street it had been the most frightening experience she had ever had. She didn't know how to approach him and after so long of imagining what their reunion would be like she suddenly couldn't get herself to move forward. What would his reaction to seeing her be? After all she had been the one who left, no matter whose idea or fault it was.

She was sure that their Soul would never truly be destroyed no matter how distance or time separated them – it wasn't something that could be broken by such petty things as time and matter, but the years of loneliness had dug a hole of insecurity in her that she always tripped over when she was heading somewhere good, it made her slow down and watch her feet and become distracted by where and when the whole would appear rather than on the end goal.

He had grown so beautiful – as she always knew he would, but there was a difference in an abstract not fully formed musing of a young imagination that reality sometimes trumps completely and in this instance reality had almost floored her with how beautiful veracity could be.

Her half of their Soul, who had listlessly drifted beside her all this time became impatient with its stone companion and suddenly surged forward, and as if his had done the same it seemed she could feel the explosion of when they reunited, as if it had been the last burst of life left in a dying star, and in that instant he had looked around directly at her as if someone behind her had called his name.

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><p>The sun is setting behind the clouds, one of those beautiful and rare times when the clouds are still purging themselves of water but are thin enough for the bright colours of the sunset to shine though. The effect was the most magnificent frosted blurring, ranges of soft oranges and pinks and golds and lilacs and greys and colours you couldn't even name or see, rainbow prisms twinkling brightly for the shortest fraction as the light pierces each rain drops.<p>

She is lying with her back facing the window, her outline is given the most radiant glow, like a saints halo spanning her whole body, while he is lying facing her, his face is lit up by the light, shining off his green eyes and copper hair making him more beautiful and unearthly than she had ever seen. This is the image that will be remembered as the beginning of their life to come and also the life that they have had. It will be the image of their past, present and future, it holds in it everything that is still to come and everything that has been and every possibility that could be or could have been.

And although the details of their life were not clear, it didn't matter, as a truer and righter reality they didn't know as the one they found themselves in on that grey day, and every other day for the rest of imaginable time.

The end


End file.
